


The First Embrace

by Daughter_of_the_Mountains



Series: Venture [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Babies, Birthdays, Brief Mention of Childbirth, F/M, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 17:08:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8110573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daughter_of_the_Mountains/pseuds/Daughter_of_the_Mountains
Summary: Part of an annual series I'm planning to depict each of Bilbo's birthdays (if I live that long). (No I don't plan to do all the way up to his 111th, though that'd be cool. I'll probably stop around his





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of an annual series I'm planning to depict each of Bilbo's birthdays if I live that long. No I don't plan to do all the way up to his 111th, though that'd be cool. I'll probably stop around his 52nd. This is his very first birthday if it can be called that, considering it takes place just after he's born in the year 2890. In FoTR, Bilbo calls the year of his 111th birthday 1400, as I recall, so this would take place in 1289 if I'm right. Anyway, these are meant to be a collection of tales about a hobbit who took us all on a great adventure and showed us all the meaning of courage while remaining true to ourselves.

It was a bright autumn's day and Belladonna Took lay back on her feather bed, clutching her newborn son in her arms, close to her swollen chest. She could see fine wisps on his delicate head, of copper and gold, the same colours as the leaves she had seen littering the ground when the pains had started. After that, it seemed every Hobbit in the Shire had come running along to 'help', Bungo's brothers had dragged him off to the tavern and their wives and her vindictive mother-in-law had stayed to help. Fortunately, _her_ mother and sisters had come the moment they'd heard. Donnamira dragged her husband back to her side, and promptly gave his brothers an earful (how Laura had loved _that_ \- one of her precious sons being told off by a Took!) and her younger but not youngest sister, Mirabella, already with three daughters of her own and a toddler son, had pressed a cool cloth to her head while her mother had held her hand.  
Having borne twelve children - nine sons and three daughters in total, Adamanta was something of an expert in childcare, childbirth and anything to do with children in general. How she had wept with joy to hear her eldest daughter was going to become a mother, too. Though she already had, oh, so many grandchildren and still relentlessly mothered Isengar, her youngest, she had yearned for Belladonna to know the joy. It had been she who took her daughter's son and quickly checked him over, her who proclaimed, _'it's a boy, a fine boy!'_ , it had been her to quickly wash the gunk and blood from his tiny body and her to put him in his mother's arms. 

Bungo had stayed to watch, though he flinched at her screams as their baby made his arrival and Laura grumbled about how it was unseemly for a man to watch something so animalistic and undignified as childbirth, but he stayed and tried to help the only way he knew - by holding her hand, carefully dabbing her burning forehead and whispering, _'now, now, dear,'_ until she had lost all patience with him and screamed at him to either stop wanting her to take it quieter or get out. He quietened and tried encouraging her by repeating her sisters' instructions to relax or push or whatever it was they wanted her to do. She was so desperate for the agony to finish that she agreed and obeyed without question and was, it felt, soon rewarded by a high thin wail joining her own shrieks. The labour had taken seven hours and she felt utterly exhausted and was rather tired when the baby was placed into her arms. Her mother helped him feed and then tenderly kissed her forehead. 'We'll look after him for a few hours, sweetheart. Get some rest.'

It had been an order she was only too glad to obey. She had slept for four hours and awoke feeling somewhat refreshed if sore. Her mother came in, gave her some freshly baked bread and a bowl of soup to eat and then it was time for Belladonna to meet her son a second time. He was asleep when he was brought to her, a tiny, clenched pink fist curled above the edge of a soft, bright blue blanket, his eyes tightly closed, softly snuffling in his sleep. She had seen many summer fairs with flower displays fit to rival Yavanna's gardens, she had seen the sun set on bright days, she had seen many Yules with beautiful trees, but she thought now that she had seen her own child, nothing was as perfect as him. He opened his eyes and she was startled to see they were a bright blue.

"He hasn't got either of our eyes!"

Adamanta smiled gently. "All babies have blue eyes. His will change. Yours did, my dear."

"Oh," Belladonna said, relieved. "I thought I'd been given the wrong son. What does everybody think of him?"

"They think he looks very much like Bungo, except for his little button of a nose!" Adamanta gently touched said button and smiled at her new grandson. "He's very lovely. Even Laura can't find fault! Your father will be here tonight to greet him. So, what is his name to be? Bungo tells me he would have named a daughter and you a son."

"I thought about naming him Bilbo after.. after the baby brother we lost." Belladonna looked shyly up at her mother's face. Adamanta's hazel eyes brightened as they always did at the mention of her lost son. "What do you think, Mother?"

"I think that's a lovely idea. It makes me very proud." Adamanta clumsily patted her hand and gently stroked the baby's cheek. "He's due for a feed in a short while, love. Do you know how to feed him?"

"You taught me, didn't you?"

"I taught you many things and you forgot half of them," Adamanta teased. "Well, then. I'll leave you two be."

As the elderly hobbit-woman left the room, Belladonna kissed the precious bundle in her arms. She smiled at him as he watched her with his strange blue eyes. The first thing -  one of the first things, rather - that she would teach her son, was how to go on an adventure, just like she used to. Bilbo may well have been a Baggins in appearance and name, but by her, he was a Took.


End file.
